Connected
by The Pigeon One
Summary: Katara wishes she could teach her children to waterbend. But while she is telling her son a story, she realizes something important that she had long ago forgotten.


Another oneshot? What is this?

Yeah, I know. But I was watching the opening sequence five seconds before I decided I was going to write another oneshot. It gave me this idea and now I'm writing it. I'm on a semi – hiatus from Goddaughter because I've been working on it too much and even though it's only got four more chapters, I'm not working on it for a while.

Note: I do not own Tenzin, but Kya's mine

Connected

A Oneshot

Katara sat with Kya in her lap and smiled at the gap toothed child. Her brother was in the corner, playing with an old airbender toy Aang had found. Briefly, Katara wished that at least some of her children could be waterbenders. She was sometimes more than annoyed that airbenders always sired airbenders – she wanted to be able to teach waterbending to her children.

But, of course, she could never bring herself to resent Aang for anything. She loved him, and deep down, she knew that she would do just about anything for the bald airbender who had already given her two bright and beautiful children.

Aang walked into the room with a tired smile on his face. He picked up his four year old son and walked to Katara without listening to Tenzin's cries of complaints.

"Kids are tiring," he said as he plopped down on the bed next to Katara.

She smiled. "No kidding. And Tenzin's the calm one. Kya has been airbending herself all over the place all day."

Aang chuckled. "I'm going to have to start teaching them soon, lest they accidentally blow themselves off the temple or something."

Katara's smile all but melted off her face. It was one of the other core reasons that she wished her children could be waterbenders. Airbenders were careless and so free that falling off a cliff was all but expected.

Aang noticed, and frowned. He instantly realized what he had said was insensitive, especially to a waterbender who would not understand the ways of an airbender.

"I'm sorry, Katara, that was insensitive of me. I know you worry about something like that happening."

Katara smile weakly ahead of her. "It's alright. I understand your – their – freespiritedness."

Aang, always good natured, reached over and took Kya and plopped her is his lap. The small two year old smiled brightly up at her father and clapped her plump hands together. "Daddy! Airbend!" she exclaimed in her baby voice, using two of the few words she had already learned.

Aang then turned to Katara. "Can you take care of Tenzin? He is the calm one, after all."

Katara laughed and scooped up her son. "No problem. Just don't let Kya hurt herself."

Aang nodded solemnly and airbended himself and his daughter off the bed. Katara watched as he situated Kya on his hip and walked out of the room.

Her thoughts bout airbending were interrupted when she felt her son tug on her sleeve.

"What is it, sweetie?" she asked, really in no mood for her hyper son.

"Daddy is the Avatar right, Mommy?" he asked innocently.

Katara smiled on him kindly. "Yes, Tenzin."

Tenzin's small forehead lined with worry as he looked down at his hands. "What does that mean, Mommy?"

Katara sighed as she tried to think of a way to explain to her son what it meant to be the Avatar and pulled Tenzin into her lap.

"Water, Earth, Fire, Air." She said finally, after debating with herself for several minutes. "Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, the master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang, and although his airbending skills were great, he still had a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe he can save the world."

Tenzin looked at his mother with wide and curious eyes. "You found Daddy in an iceberg?"

Katara laughed jostling the boy in her lap. "Yes, me and your Uncle Sokka found your father in an iceberg in the South Pole."

Katara watched with amused eyes as her son's mouth formed a round shape and he looked at her in wonderment. "Tell me more, Mommy!" he demanded, his little fists banging lightly on Katara's thighs.

"Well," she said thoughtfully. "Your uncle didn't like Daddy at first. You have to understand, the world was at war, and Uncle Sokka was suspicious of any one who didn't belong to out tribe. Did you know you're part Southern Water Tribe, Tenzin?"

Tenzin shook his head in great awe and his mother laughed. "I'll take you there someday, and you can see your grandfather. You probably don't remember him."

Tenzin shook his head and bid Katara to continue her story.

"So, eventually Uncle Sokka came to trust Daddy like I did, and we took off with Daddy to the Northern Water Tribe so that he could learn waterbending, the next element in the cycle. We had a lot of adventures between then and the time we got to the North Pole, but we got there, and both your father and I learned waterbending.

"There was a great battle while we were there, and they called it the Siege of the North. Your father went into the Avatar State, and saved us. After that, we left the North Pole, and we headed out to find Daddy an earthbending teacher. That's how we met your Aunt Toph. She taught Daddy earthbending."

Tenzin's mouth again dropped open in amazement. "Aunt Toph taught Daddy to earthbend?" he cried.

Katara chuckled. "Yes, she did. It was the hardest element for Daddy to learn because it is so the opposite of airbending. But eventually, he did learn. We headed for the Earth Kingdom soon after with some information about the Fire Nation so that we, the good guys could win the war."

"But isn't Uncle Zuko the king of the Fire Nation?" Tenzin interrupted.

"Yes, honey," Katara laughed. "I'll tell you what happened in just a minute.

"We went to the Earth Kingdom and made plans to invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun, which meant there was an eclipse of the sun and the firebenders wouldn't be able to bend. But we were found out, and the invasion didn't go well.

"Afterwards, when our group was at the Western Air Temple, Uncle Zuko joined us and taught Daddy to firebend. It didn't take as long as we expected, and when Sozin's comet came around, we won the war."

Katara leaned down and kissed her son on the crown of his head, where a dust of dark brown chocolate hair grew. "That's our story, Tenzin. That's how your father and I met and fell in love."

Tenzin looked at his mother with confused eyes. "You fell in love with Daddy then?"

Katara nodded with a smile on her face. "We were in love probably from the day we met. We were so connected…"

Katara didn't finish her sentence. Just one word had made her realize what she had been missing; just one word had made everything fall in to place.

"Mommy?"

"It's all connected," she muttered to herself, not hearing the complaints of her son. It was only when Tenzin blew a small gust of wind in her face that Katara came out of her stupor.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, I just got a little distracted. Why don't you go find your sister and play with her for awhile? I need to speak to Daddy."

Tenzin shrugged his small shoulders, jumped quickly off the bed, and ran very fast out of the room, his arms stuck out behind his back like he was a glider.

Smiling, Katara got up to find her husband and talk to him about revelation and all that it meant.

She found him on an outlying balcony, sitting on the ledge with his legs cliffside. She approached him quietly, knowing that even if she walked on the balls of her feet and made no noise at all he would still know she was there.

"I'm sorry." She said without ceremony, putting her hand on Aang's back. She could feel the muscles there relax under her touch, and he turned around so that he was facing her, swinging one leg back over the ledge so he was straddling the railing. He knew Katara worried he would fall.

"For what?" he asked, his expression genuine. He didn't know what his wife was apologizing for.

Katara smiled and took Aang's hand. "For how I've been acting. I see you teaching the children airbending and I get jealous. I wish I could teach at least one of them waterbending, and it was making me moody. It didn't occur to me that everything is connected, and though I might not physically teach them how to waterbend, I can teach them waterbending in theory, so that they can apply what they learn from me to what you teach them."

Aang smiled and hopped off the ledge and collected his wife in his arms. "You have nothing to apologize for, Katara. I love you and I've known you more than long enough to know how to deal with you when you get moody."

Katara playfully smacked Aang's muscled bicep and then snuggled into his chest. "I love you. And I promise that I'll never again forget that everything is connected. I swear."

END

So, one could say that this correlates with my previous Kataang oneshot, The Best Days. You don't have to read that to understand this, but it gives some insight on Katara's first pregnancy and how Aang feels about being a first time father. So it's more like suggested reading, rather than required.


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